applicants and there you see how racial references still have a powf powerful impact of today. america is supposed to be about fairness and just at this but it's also been about discrimination and racial preferences. so say let's be color blind now, is to be blind and to sentence a large segment of america to remain cut off from the american drek and that's not the way this great nation is supposed to be. that does it for us. martin, it's yours. >> toure, hear, hear. thank you. good afternoon. it's friday, october the 12th, and paul ryan should thank the lord that he doesn't have to do that again. ♪ >> i feel great. >> of it has never been done before. >> it's been done a couple times. >> it has never -- >> ja kennedy increased -- >> now your jack kennedy? folks, use your common sense. who do you trust on this? they're saying no, they're

holding hostage the middle class tax cut to the super wealthy. just get out of the way. but it shouldn't be surprising for a guy who says 47% of the american people are unwilling to take responsible responsible for their own lives. >> i think the vice president very well knows that sometimes the words don't come out of your mouth the right way. >> but i always say what i mean. have you ever seen me rope-a-dope. ♪ how you like me now ♪ how like me now ♪ how you like me now >> he came, he saw, and he told the truth, and the great pretender, paul ryan, was exposed after a no holds barred full out slugfest of a debate

with vice president joe biden last night. and for democrats across the country, it is tgi biden, a man who brought the fight to congressman ryan with a huge heart and lethal honesty on everything from medicare to taxes, abortion, middle class opportunity, and foreign policy. and this afternoon the vice president landed in ryan's home turf of wisconsin hungry for more action going after romney/ryan on the 47%. >> these are the folks who talk about 47% of the american people being unwilling to take responsibility. it's about time governor romney takes some responsibility. >> biden had the crowd fired up after a debate performance many wish the president had given. one in which he outlined a blistering attack on his opponents, delivering a flurry of punches from the opening bell. >> romney said, no, let detroit go bankrupt. we moved in and helped people

refinance their homes. governor romney said, no, let foreclosures hit the bottom. but it shouldn't be surprising for a guy who says 47% of the american people are unwilling to take responsibility for their own lives. my friend recently in a speech in washington said 30% of the american people are takers. these people are my mom and dad, the people i grew up with, my neighbors. they pay more effective tax than governor romney pays in his federal income tax. >> indeed. biden's performance was so impressive, the other party was forced to admit that they had taken a hiding. with even mitt romney singing joe's praises today in virginia. >> i think you might agree with me that there was one person on stage last night who was thoughtful and respectful, steady, and poised, the kind of person you want to turn to in a crisis. >> no, no, that can't be right. there must be more to it than that. >> and that was the next vice president of the united states, paul ryan. >> right. he was talking about this guy.

>> he talks about detroit. mitt romney is a car guy. >> good one. sell that salesman at the top of the ticket and drives a couple cad laks. but bill clinton today, well, he was a bit incredulous about that line at an event in indiana. >> mr. ryan said last night that governor romney was a car guy. i thought, well, if having an elevator to stack them counts, i guess he was. >> now president clinton, don't you go down that line that mr. romney is just a plutocrat who will never get the 47% to take the responsibility for their own lives and car storage. paul ryan has got his back and will defend him to the gates of hell. >> mitt romney is a good man. he cares about 100% of americans in this country, and with respect to that quote, i think the vice president very well knows that sometimes the words don't come out of your mouth the right way. >> but i always say what i mean.

and so does romney. >> yes, except mr. romney only says what he means in quiet rooms. let's get right to our panel. here in new york msnbc contributor ari melber and msnbc political analyst karen finney, and in washington msnbc contributor jonathan capehart. karen, i must have been watching the wrong channel because on the most serious issues, the most pressing issues, paul ryan was about as effective, i felt, as a mute donkey. if you think about it, taxes. no details. afghanistan, no difference with the president. unemployment, pure deceit. he said it's going up all over the country. this is the guy who is supposed to be the numbers individual who comes out and tells us he and his friend should be in the white house. >> who didn't even have his numbers right and didn't even have his facts right. some of my favorite moments were when biden was able to say, i was there, that's not what happened. that's not how that worked. there were details from

president reagan. you don't have details. we're supposed -- there's this mythology, right, that paul ryan and the young guns were able to build up over the last couple years and finally that's being hit with the reality that he practiced very well. he did a very fine job. i suppose it looks like from what i understand sarah palin did, she practiced her answers and she performed them quite well. he practiced his answers and if you didn't know that the facts were wrong, you would have thought he had a good performance. >> you would have been quite impressed. john, if i had a tumbler of whiskey each time romney or ryan refused to explain their tax plan, i would need a liver transplantation. did we learn anything about how the mythical mitt romney budget gives everyone 20% tax cuts without the government losing massive amounts in revenue? did we have that explained last night? >> no, no we didn't. and martha raddatz would have given congressman ryan all the time in the world to get into the numbers and to get wonky. >> john, i don't want to go wonky on you but why didn't he

explain that? >> you know, well, here is the thing. it's getting to what i was about to say. mitt romney doesn't have -- hasn't spelled out any specifics, hasn't put them out on the table as to how he's going to go about this 20% tax cut. meanwhile, paul ryan has a whole lot of specifics on the table, and what you had last night, i think, is a paul ryan basically denying himself. for him to answer the questions the way we wanted him to answer them would be for him to talk about the facts as he knows them, as he's put in his budgets in the path to prosperity and road map to america's future but that's not where the top of the ticket is. that's not where mitt romney is. so poor paul ryan. he was stuck between a rock and a hard place. >> don't forget big bird there, jonathan. remember governor romney did give us a specific, he's going to get rid of big bird. >> that's impressive. ari, for sheer bravado in the absence of any details, paul ryan surely wins the oscar because he claims six studies prove that their 20% tax cut will be revenue neutral and

won't increase the deficit. but i have to tell you, three of those six studies were blog posts or op-eds and one of them was paid for by romney for president, inc. that's the most elegant mendacity i've ever seen, isn't it? >> i would love to have their campaign promote my blog. if each post is a study, you can really get on a roll there. i'm really glad you're spotlighting this, martin, because this is the biggest problem they have on the domestic front. they've outlined these 20% cuts for everyone, that's a 20% cut in taxes for the 1%, and then they've said but don't worry, it's not really going to cut the taxes on the rich because we have this larger plan that we won't detail, and this is a lie that the press has trouble dealing with. this would be like if you went to dinner with someone at mcdonald's and they say i'm going to get a sandwich and drink and dessert for under $2. and you say i can see that's impossible because the price is on the menu. and they say you haven't heard my plan yet. you have to wait until i get

elected -- >> i'm looking at the menu sheet and it says the price -- >> exactly. so what the nonpartisan studies have shown is that you have to either go after mortgage interest deductions which they said they won't do or after a whole other bunch of deductions that hit the poor. either way, it is a big tax cut for the 1%. so when romney says and ryan repeated last night, that's not the case, that is untrue. >> but he did say -- i do not do math. i will say that up front but i think we can agree when he said when you talk about what you need to pay for the president's proposals, that there's not enough rich people, right? >> that's what he said. >> right. but there's enough rich people to fill a $5 trillion hole from his plan? are there more rich people in romney's world i suppose? is that what we're supposed to believe? >> i just don't know. jonathan, are we in a post-truth election where the facts and the evidence are no longer sacred? i mean ryan stands up there and says i've got six studies, one paid for by my mate who is

actually running for president but don't worry about it. i mean, what are we supposed to believe anymore? >> well, that's what is seems the romney/ryan campaign wants us to believe, that the truth doesn't matter, facts don't matter, there's not enough time to really get into the details. oh, wait until after the election. but i do think that the american people are very smart, and actually if you listen to them carefully, they're clamoring for specifics, not just from mitt romney but also from president obama. there are a lot of big problems out there that need to be solved, and they're just dying for someone to tell them exactly what's going to happen and so say fact checkers don't matter, the truth doesn't matter, oh, wait, trust me, that's not good enough. >> can i put that question to all three of you. don't i think, ari, that actually sarah palin did much better than paul ryan against joe biden? >> i think sarah palin managed to constrain joe biden more. that's what came through to me is that -- >> but sarah palin didn't tell

outright lies. she didn't reference bogus study that is were paid for by her running mate. she didn't do any of those things. >> it's actually an interesting stylistic ircomparison. sarah palin is a good debater in the sense of constant reacting. she was more biden than biden. there was that kind of interplay, whereas here you really got biden 100% full throttle and we're going to see it in the "saturday night live" skit, e laughing, reacting, but in many ways he was dominating. one other point, last night the word tax was used 83 times. the word job was used only 36 times. they spent to jonathan's point a great amount of energy getting into the weeds of these tax plans. so i think for voters who were trying to make up their mind, what they saw was paul ryan has a lot of trouble explaining this tax plan. >> well, look, i think the sheer fact that today what are the republicans talking about? they're talking about how many

times joe biden laughed or had a reaction rather than the substance. they don't have substance on their side. they can only go to stylistic points. to that paul ryan did a good job of memorizing his answers and we've talked about this before, memorizing enough numbers and facts and figures he can throw them out there is that sounded like that's got to be a plan because there's a lot of numbers in it. >> numbers make a plan. thank you all. next, mr. ryan gets tripped up by, as karen said, the numbers, and it's funny how people's perceptions can change in just a week. stay with us. >> i just could not believe how disrespectful he was and being from the midwest, as paul ryan is as well, there's such a thing as midwestern sensibilities and midwestern politeness and, know, you go in front of me. that's what paul ryan was doing. >> the president began this segment so i think i get the last word. so i'm going to take it. >> you're going to get the first word in the next segment. >> he gets the first word of this segment, i get the last

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voters learned last night that for a man who described himself as a numbers guy, paul ryan is one of the worst mathematicians in america. for instance, his zero tolerance policy on stimulus money, well, that comes with an asterisk. >> sure, he did. >> on two occasions we advocated for skaents who were applying for grants. that's what we did. we do that for all constituents -- >> i love that. this is such a bad program and he writes the department of energy saying the reason we need this stimulus, it will create growth and jobs. >> indeed. numbers plagued mr. ryan so much

during thursday's debate that he nearly forgot who he was. >> you can cut tax rates by 20% and still preserve these important preferences for middle class taxpayers. >> not mathematically possible. >> it is possible. it's been done before. >> it has never been done bofer. >> it's been done a couple times. jack kennedy lowers tax rates and -- >> now you're jack kennedy. >> joining us now here in new york is salon.com's joan walsh and in washington michael scherer white house correspondent for "time." >> did i not know jack kennedy. he was not a friend of mine but i feel confident in saying paul ryan is no jack kennedy. would you agree? >> i would agree with that. and he walked right into that. he wahanded that to joe biden a it was hilarious. michael, my friend, literally my friend, not in the joe biden sense, michael is my friend, is

in the beltway, i don't mean to dispaur raj beltway reporters, but paul ryan has been given such a pass. he has a reputation for being a worngy guy, good at the numbers. his numbers have never added up. he has this reputation for being a deficit hawk. as joe biden said he voted for the wars, for the new medicare -- >> the prescription drug benefit. >> he voted -- >> the bush tax cuts. >> the bush tax cuts, all of the bush budgets. he voted for a bush stimulus. in addition to voting against obama stimulus but asking for money, he voted for bush stimulus and he described it in his speeches. he was a kecanesian. he's never been forced to be consistent and yet he's hailed as this great economist, this great numbers thinker. >> michael, ryan still had no answer, as joan said shall as to how he'd pay for a 20% across the board tax cut. martha raddatz asked at least twice. mike, have you ever heard a

politician make such a promise to the electorate yet not even try, not even attempt to provide one detail when asked? >> well, here is what the campaign will say and here is what ryan wasn't saying explicitly on that stage because it's a hard thing to argue. it's that they believe that if you give this sort of tax cut, there will be economic growth that's not projected now that we can then add to the amount of revenue the government takes in. it's a republican argument that's been used basically since the '80s consistently and most of the time it doesn't work. every now and then it's true, you do get this big economic boost, and that boost revenues, and then all of a sudden you can pay for it. the problem is in washington the congress budget office and those people who score these things don't score this methodology. romney cannot go to congress and say there's going to be an extra 1% or 2% growth that i'm projecting because a couple people have written blog posts that say it's reasonable and,

therefore, we can say it's all going to not add to the deficit. if romney goes to congress and tries to put through that plan, the result will be a score that says you are adding to the deficit, and he will either have to at that point try to convince all of the american people that the cbo is wrong or he will have to pull back on his proposal. and so that's really where this discussion is right now. ryan and romney are relying on an accounting prediction that is not really predictable. you can't bank on it. it could happen, probably won't. >> michael, many people would call that an outright lie. joan, by my count joe biden mentioned the magic number 47% on at least five o kitions. how effectively do you think mr. biden used the secret tape where romney was waxing lyrical about his con terpt for half the population. >> i thought those were his finest moments. he had -- he mentioned it several times but he had two separate times when he talked to martha and he talked to the

audience, and he said that you're talking about my parents, you're talking about my neighbors, you're talking about the people i grew up with in scranton, you're talking about seniors, and you're talking about the military. and he made it vivid in a way that few of us, myself included i feel, have really made that number vivid. he also, you know, again, not going to bash president obama again, but he did give a rationale for their administration and for the re-election, that they have a very different view of the role of government in creating the middle class, that we did it once before in the '30s, '40s, '50s, and '60s and we can do it again and the middle class just needs a fair shot. i felt that was the most heartfelt and emotional portions of his presentation, and i think that they're very effective. people are talking about his laughter, about you when you show those couple moments and you see his passion talking to people directly, i think it's so effective and devastating. paul ryan looks like an accountant whose numbers don't

add up. >> michael, final opportunity for you, do you think mr. biden has stole the limited momentum that romney appeared to have last week? >> well, he at least changed the conversation. we're no longer talking about how barack obama is a terrible debater and may have given away the election a week ago which is good for barack obama. i don't know if this debate will move polls, it will probably stop a slide that was already slowing and all that will matter from here on on is the performance of obama and romney. i think the public will come away from this slightly more informed than they were before and it was a pretty entertaining debate to watch but it's not the kind of debate that will decide the election. vice presidential debates rarely do. >>. >> it could close the enthusiasm gap. >> but obama has to deliver on that. it can go away just as quickly. >> michael and joan, thank you both. stay with us. much more ahead. >> that's a tough format. it reminded me, i just told

neil, of watching a musk objection run across the tundra with somebody underfoot and in this case when it came to style it was paul ryan underfoot because of the moderator allowing biden to do the interrupting, to kind of take control of the conversation. it came to style it was paul it came to style it was paul you can prevent gas with beano meltaways,

or treat gas with these after you get it. now that's like sunblock before or sun burn cream later. oh, somebody out there's saying, now i get it! take beano before and there'll be no gas. the president told us his only advice was that joe should be joe, and his vice president clearly took those words to heart throwing some big punches and winning applause from the president late last night. >> i thought joe biden was terrific tonight. i could not be prouder of him. he thought he made a very strong case and, you know, i really think that his passion for making sure that the economy grows for the middle class came through. >> nbc's mike viqueira joins us

from an equally blusyer white house. >> reporter: oh, yes. >> does the president owe mr. biden a beer or two after last night's street fight in kentucky? >> reporter: i tell you, maybe some of that white house honey porter -- >> that's what i'm thinking. >> reporter: that they brew over here. >> that stuff you drink most days, mike, yes. >> reporter: you know, there's the spin room they have after the debates and then there's under the wing on the tarmac. i don't recall the president ever doing that. i think it was wheels down around 11:00 last night coming back from his florida rally. he watched the debate aboard air force one. i think they timed his return just so he could do that. i don't recall the president not only stopping under the wing at air force one to give his two cents and endorse what joe biden had accomplished in the president's view in that debate, but he got here on the south lawn once marine one landed on the south lawn and he stopped at the press and did it all over again. certainly, you know, you mentioned a beer, the joe six-pack regular guy from scranton persona that joe biden

had. he was certainly emphasizing that but joe biden is joe biden just as the president encouraged him to be. the president is not joe biden. you know, he's not going to be that demonstrative but certainly we can expect him to be more aggressive. he leaves tomorrow morning for another debate camp, training camp, if you will, three days in another swing state. he's not going to be far away, in williamsburg, virginia, and he'll go directly from there to the debate next tuesday night. what white house officials will only say about how any adjustments that the president is making last night on the plane, a senior official telling reporters governor romney is trying to hide a variety of his positions and we're going to make sure the american people understand what he would actually do if he's president, martin. >> good luck with that. nbc's mike viqueira. thank you, as always. stay with us. the week's "top lines" are coming up. go! here it comes! right in the numbers. boom! get it! spin! oh nice hands! thank you, as always. my favor! oh! [ male announcer ] share what you love,

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kentucky. here at today's "top line," don't drink the water. >> you have to hand it to mitt romney, president obama sure did. >> looks like he took my million and spent it all on weed. >> here is old moderate mitt. where you been, boy? i miss you. >> lied about what? this is something he's been saying all along. >> do you know what money is? i'm guessing no because you're watching public television. >> governor romney went to a lot of trouble to hide his positions. >> i'm a pro-life president. >> this rice is as tight as mitt's smile when he meets a poor person. >> pay no attention to that tax cut under carpet. >> they chant four more years. the right chant ought to be. >> four more wars. >> i think joe needs to be joe. >> this is paul's first debate. >> this is pie first time. >> did you ever see me rope-a-dope. >> it's going to be the boy wonder versus mr. blunder. >> see the guy's guns?

>> if his guys get you going, that's on you. >> we welcome vice president joe biden and congressman paul ryan. >> this is a bunch of stuff. it means it's simply inaccurate. we irish call it malarkey. >> that's how it's going all around america. >> you don't read the stack ticks. that's not how it's going. just get out of the way. >> i just could not believe how disrespectful he was. >> this is a thirsty guy. >> a 54-year-old man i would have had to get up two or three times during the debate had i done that. >> i thought joe biden was terrific. >> he's a communist. >> have you ever seen a comy drink a glass of water. >> just because he was born here doesn't mean he thinks like us. he's a communist, buddy. >> on no account will a commi ever drink water and not without good reason. >> at least we know paul ryan is not commie. joining us iser to ray and joy

reid. there's been a lot of whining today from republicans. i think i have heard less whining for triplets fighting over their mother's breast. they even put out a whole video of the vice president's smiling. i don't know if you know this but winston churchill once said, i like a man who grins when he's fighting. so is smiling a sin now? is that wrong? >> yeah, i don't know why they're even trying that. maybe because they lost that debate and quite handily. look, they got their butts handed to them if we can say that. we talked about lying -- >> take it as far as you like. >> we talked about lying and malarkey, we talked about 47%, we talked about abortion in a way that was totally devastating to the ryan/romney ticket. we talked about ryan being unable to spell out his tax cut. look, martha raddatz said, can you give me a specific? biden said, hey, how about this, the home mortgage deduction? and ryan said well -- can you say anything? martha had to give up. so no specifics. okay, we have to move on.

>> and we do. joy, let's forget about the whining for a moment and focus on the facts. last night mr. ryan claimed that the white house has been calling syrian dictator bashar assad a, quote, reformer. now, earlier today the romney/ryan spokeswoman was asked about that claim. take a listen to this. >> the associated press did a fact check andrea and says that nobody in the administration ever called bashar assad a reformer, that that was characterized -- >> that's inaccurate. >> okay. then they say -- >> that's inaccurate. hillary clinton was the one who called assad a reformer. paul ryan was correct when he said that. >> okay. now, hold your horses for a second. we went back and found that secretary clinton actually said and she does not call mr. assad a reformer. to suggest otherwise is a complete distortion. she's actually referring to other senators who went over who described him as such. so that was an outright lie, but i guess the spokeswoman has now been affected by the same

disease. we lie about our marathon times, we lie about gm motors and the factory, and then we lie about what the secretary of state says. that's just the norm now, is it? >> and we clech our pearls about how mean and nasty the democrats are. we just won't let us say what we want to say that isn't true. when you lose a debate you sort of clutch for anything and grab for anything. the fact that almost everyone who is speaking up for the romney/ryan ticket today is focused on syria. syria, the one issue that was discussed last night that 99.9% of voters are not voting on in this election. really tells you something. they had nothing else in that debate to grab onto but what was spoken about in the first like ten minutes. so they're not talking about the parts of the debate that are most germane to the public, medicare in which ryan embarrassed himself. taxes upon which ryan had nothing to say. he literally declined to answer

the question and said some mumbo jumbo about partisanship and i don't know why he would know anything about that. i think what we're seeing is an absence of an actual defense of ryan's performance so they're grabbing for libya. >> i want to go back to that because obstruction is not discussed enough on the national stage and paul ryan kept with this lie of we're trying to be bipartisan and biden repeatedly pointed out areas of obstruction. he pointed out congress' 7% approval rating, which is the point of obstruction, to ruin congress' rating so americans will throw out the party in power. he talked about the embassy security money being removed, he talked about if they just get out of the way. even the stimulus letter moment, which i loved. ryan is trying to attack the stimulus, and he said, well, you asked gor stimulus money twice. you wrote me two letters which proves republicans know that these policies are valuable and important and helpful to americans and still they oppose them. >> indeed. joy, the republican divorce from

reality based thinking was evident inside the debate hall but you saw it outsides a well. take a listen to this. >> who said communist down here? what do you mean by that? >> well all you have to do is study it out, just study it out and you will see. you haven't done your homework, buddy. >> what do you mean by communist? >> you don't know? >> just tell me. help me out here. >> you don't know? >> i just want to know what you mean. >> oh, i know what i mean. >> does she know what she means? and she's referring to the president of the united states of america as a communist. >> absolutely. >> has she been listening to allen west who says there are 79 konl niss pretending to be democrats in the house? >> this is what happens when you get your news from talk radio rather than from, i don't know, news, and you ever a lot of people on the right who throw around these charges like marxist and communist but the only thing chris matthews could have done to improve that moment would have been define communism, go. she wouldn't have been able to answer the question. >> he said what do you mean?

>> she can't. >> the right have decided they have these names they feed their base but they have also been feeding them ignorance. they don't fill in the blanks defining some of the terms they're throwing around. they just teach the base to parrot the names. they have an empty critique of the president but they don't have the substance. >> she also goes on to say he's not american but then she somehow concedes he was born in america but that doesn't make him american. so what makes you american then? >> being a conservative. what are you talking about? >> oh, right. this is the alternative reality. >> to defend our colleague, for chris matthews to be accused by someone as not having done his homework and not read anything and not knowing any details. >> of all the people who have been in this game for decades, chris matthews did not do his homework but you lady, who i think looking at those glasses can barely see, did you your homework? >> chris talked to another lady and said why are you voting for mitt romney and some guy behind her yells liberty so she says

liberty. >> thank you so much for liberty. show us the loopholes, messrs. romney and ryan. please, show us a loophole. we're all adults. stay with us. >> and in this case when it came to style, it was paul ryan underfoot because of the moderator allowing biden to do the interrupting, to kind of take control of the conversation. >> maybe there's a lesson, if martha ever gets married again, probably paul radioian should go to her wedding which i thought was wrong in the first place because there's an obvious conflict of interest. i was in the ambulanher we wrong in the first place because there's an obvious conflict of interest. 33 years old, i was hg a heart attack. now i'm on a bayer aspirin regimen. [ male announcer ] be sure to talk to your doctor before you begin an aspirin regimen. i didn't know this could happen so young. take control, talk to your doctor.

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help cover what medicare doesn't pay. and could save you thousands a year in out-of-pocket costs. call now to request your free decision guide. and learn more about the kinds of plans that will be here for you now -- and down the road. i have a lifetime of experience. so i know how important that is. on a romney administration, we will have credibility on this issue. >> vice president biden. >> it's incredible. >> thank heavens we had these sanctions in place. it's been discredited by six studies. over 100 clim investigations that have been --

>> martha. >> go ahead. >> mar that, look -- >> vice president biden had every reason in the world to roll his eyes at paul ryan last night. mr. ryan and mr. romney have served up one big crap burger an another in this race. the most farfetched is the fiction that they're trying to help the middle class. we're joined now by representative john yarmouth, democrat of kentucky, and a member of the house budget committee that mr. ryan chairs. thank you, sir, for joining us. we heard last night from mr. ryan about helping out the middle class. of course, we've also heard mr. romney say that, too. take a listen to this, sir. >> and i will get them lower. let me tell you how we can. i have a plan to cut taxes for middle incomes taxpayers. my plan does this, there will be no tax on interest, dividends, or capital gains for middle income families in america. >> i must draw your attention to that, sir. according to the tack policy center, 70% of the federal tax on capital gains is paid for by the wealthiest 1% of the people,

the top 1%. yet mr. romney is telling us his capital gains tax cut, like it's some kind of gift for the middle class. i'm interested in your response to that. >> well, of course, we know that governor romney considers middle class $200,000 to $250,000 so maybe he's talking about helping those people some more. there's some merit in helping those people but for the vast majority of the american people, the 98% who don't make up to $250,000, i think that's going to be another hollow promise. >> but again, i have to put that to you, he claims, this as his great specific, capital gains, and yet 70% of that benefits the top 1%. >> well, we've heard this argument before on the budget committee. what they will say is if we cut capital gains taxes, then the people who benefit from that will invest it and create more jobs that help the middle class. but you know what? we tried that.

we tried that for the bush administration. we tried it for ten years, and it really didn't -- that playbook didn't really score a lot of points. so, you know, even if you could make in theory that argument, again, we've had pretty recent evidence to support the fact that that doesn't work. >> okay. we always hear from messrs. ryan and romney about closing loopholes and deductions so they can cut taxes across the board, as you know, by 20%, but a new study from the nonpartisan joint committee on taxation says that you can take out all the itemized deductions in the tax code, including the allowance for mortgage interest, and it would only allow you to cut taxes by 4%. what do you say to that? >> right. well, you know, it's bizarre that governor romney still talks about cutting taxes by 20 -- the tax rate by 20% on the very wealthiest americans because those people don't have a lot of mortgage deductions.

i mean, usually they own their own home for they have a relatively small mortgage. they don't worry about the employer benefits deduction, so they really don't have a lot of deductions. so the idea that if you cut their rate by 20% you wouldn't be cutting their taxes is absolutely outrageous, and, again, you're talking about mortgage deductions, helps the middle class. you're talking about charitable deductions help obviously a lot of nonprofit organizations in the country. you're talking about ira contributions, things that help the middle class build a nest egg. you're really hurting the middle class and you're not at all penalizing the rich. i have to say one thing, when romney said that, he said i'm really not going to cut taxes on the rich, then what happens to his job creation program because i thought the whole thing was we're going to cut taxes on the job creators so they will hire more people. he kind of undermines his own

program. >> i wish you'd stop paying attention to what he actually says. thank you so much indeed. congressman john yarmuth. next, heaven help us, how the candidates' answers on questions of faith reveals so much. stay with us. candidates' answers on questions chances are, you're not made of money, so don't overpay for motorcycle insurance. geico, see how much you could save. [ male announcer ] jill and her mouth have lived a great life. but she has some dental issues she's not happy about. so i introduced jill

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the vice president and his challenger are both committed members of the catholic church, and in one of the most compelling moments of last knight's debate, they were invited to explain how their faith has defined their views on abortion. congressman ryan made it abundantly clear that a president romney has no intention of living with a law that was settled by the supreme court in 1973. >> i don't see how a person can separate their public life from their private life for from their faith. the policy of a romney administration is to oppose

abortion with the exceptions for rape, incest, and life of the mother. we don't think that unelected judges should make this decision. >> as for vice president biden and the president himself, turns out they still believe in separation of church and state. >> life begins at conception. that's the church's judgment. i accept it in my personal life, but i refuse to impose it on equally devout christians and muslims and jews. i just refuse to impose that on others. >> joining us now, julian epstein is a democratic strategist and former chief minority counsel to the house judiciary committee and maria teresa kumar is president and ceo of voter latino. julian, it is breathtaking to observe mr. ryan at work. he breezes past the constitutional separation of church and state, and if that wasn't astonishing enough, he then argued that the supreme court has no business ruling on the issue in the first place. i mean, is it his view that a

mormon bishop like mitt romney should decide the issue? >> well, it's a good question, martin. look, the easy answer, one easy answer to his point about separating faith from your public life is the catholic church also says divorce is wrong, but the catholic church does not say that if you're an elected official who happens to be catholic that you must impose a divorce prohibition on the rest of the country. look, what happened last night and why it was so significant is because the chickens are now coming home to roost. mitt romney and the republican party have a very extreme position when it comes to contraception and abortion, a position that makes -- that offends most women and many, many men. they have an extreme position on medicare that seniors go running for the hills when they understand that the voucher program means that the medicare system cannot work because the economics don't work. they not only have an extreme position on taxes, they have an incoherent position on taxes because the numbers don't add up. not only that, it's not a jobs plan. there's no analysis out there that suggests that the tax

plplan that they articulate will do much to create jobs. i think what's happened is they've played this kind of stunt, this game, that you can fool some of the people some of the time, but the problem for mitt romney and the republicans as was shown in the debate is these positions, whether it's soths issues or others are not sustainable over time, and what democrats now -- ya they're so he be ewe lent today is because we understand if they focus on the issues and focus on the extremism and incoherence of the republicans, we will ride to victory on the backs of the issues. >> to that point, isn't there a lack of seriousness about the way these two treat such an important and personal issue as it relates to women's health? i mean, they changed their positions by the day. they dismiss the supreme court's ruling with such disregard. i mean, these people aren't serious about such a sensitive issue, are they? >> well, it's a catch-all mitt i think it what we should start calling him and ryan his running

mate. this is the problem. basically what he did last night was officially announce that abortion is on the ballot come november. >> right. >> that's an incredible opening for the democrats because when you start saying that you don't care -- that you want government not to be in your medicine cabinet, you don't want government anywhere else except when you walk into your doctor's advice sout, that's not only going to irritate women but put them up in arms. there are fathers as well who want to support women's rights. it's so egregious the fact they want to turn back the clock back to 1973 and actually put women's lives at risk for something that is so narrow-minded in their view of how the world should be. >> right. julian, given the way both candidates were invited to discuss the implications of their catholic faith last night and, indeed, the way republicans repeatedly question the president's christian faith, why is there such a reluctance to ask detailed questions about the mormon candidate in this race? why the reluctance? >> well, i think if you did

that, mitt romney would find a way of dancing around that, and i don't think democrats necessarily need to go there because it's thinly veiled religious bigotry, and i think it's important and it's instructive to note that democrats have not attacked mitt romney for the faith that he has as opposed to republicans who have attacked barack obama for the faith that he does not have. and, again, i think this is unnecessary for democrats to go to this place. it's distasteful, but more importantly and to maria's point if the democrats -- what they need to do right now is focus. focus on the extremism of the social policies like contraception and abortion, focus on the extreme policies on health care. they want to destroy the medicare system as we know it. they don't want pre-existing conditions covered for tens of millions of people. and on the economics, they do not have a plan. if democrats focus on those issues rather than to go to these other matters of romney's faith, they will win this election. >> and they talk about freedom every day, but they don't want to continue with the separation

of church and state. maria teresa kumar and julian epstein, thank you both, and we'll be right back. now with a fancy coating that gives you a burst of wildberry flavor. now why make a flavored heartburn pill? because this is america. and we don't just make things you want, we make things you didn't even know you wanted. like a spoon fork. spray cheese. and jeans made out of sweatpants. so grab yourself some new prilosec otc wildberry. [ male announcer ] one pill each morning. 24 hours. zero heartburn. satisfaction guaranteed or your money back.

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